St. Louis becomes the latest battleground in fight over data centers

Updated on: August 31, 2026 / 10:16 PM EDT / CBS News

As tech companies pour trillions of dollars into new data centers as part of the ongoing AI boom sweeping the globe, communities across the U.S., including St. Louis, are finding themselves in the middle of a high-stakes fight.

A million square feet of old warehouse space in the Missouri city has turned into a mountain of controversy as David Daneshforooz, CEO of TerraWatt, plans to develop a data center there.

"St. Louis has a lot of old, kind of decaying infrastructure that's being underutilized," Daneshforooz told CBS News. "And so data centers have the opportunity, if done responsibly, to bring back industry into those communities."

But for many in the community, the sales pitch has fallen flat. And they're not alone. A recent Gallup poll found that more than 70% of Americans don't want data centers in their area.

Kasey Fowler-Finn, a biologist at Saint Louis University, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit, filed on Friday, seeking to halt the development. She's concerned about noise, water use, electricity use and more.

"There's been no environmental impact assessment and no low-frequency sound study," she told CBS News.

"A lot…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/